Keith Saunders

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Posts Tagged ‘Donald Trump’

Who remembers the musical Scrooge from 1970 starring Albert Finney? There’s a scene, about 2/3 of the way through, where Scrooge, visiting the his future self, views his own funeral celebration. A cast of thousands breaks into a song called Thank You Very Much, singing, dancing, and gala-banding down a London street. Scrooge, of course, thinks the crowd is thanking him for years of service and philanthropy, where in reality they are thanking God for ridding them of a scoundrel.

This is how I envision America to be were Trump to die in office. It wouldn’t be a day of shock, grief, or mourning, such as when J.F.K. was assassinated. No, this would be abject relief, if not joy. Something tells me that Melania would be leading the parade.

The Trump-train chugs on. Last week it was reported that Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, referred to the president as a ‘moron.’ Donald J. Trump, ever the sportsman, challenged Tillerson to an IQ contest. Once the news of this reached the high IQ society known as Mensa, the international society offered to oblige by hosting the test. You can’t make this up!

Mensa is in the news, possibly for the first time ever, and this jogged an old memory of mine. Years ago I had a gig on a cruise ship. My band mate, with whom I shared a cabin, was a member of Mensa. How did I know? He had a Mensa t-shirt which he wore practically every day.

One day we played chess and somehow I beat him. He must have let his guard down, playing a non-genius. I couldn’t believe it, and neither could he. You’ve never seen an angrier sax player. I believe this was the last I saw of his Mensa T-shirt.

Conventional thinking would be that this is a horrible time to be a Republican. President Donald Trump is a disgrace to the office – a detestable, incurious, narcissist who likely is suffering from some form of dementia. The Republican majority Congress has been ineffectual and, with few exceptions, unwilling to challenge the corrupt and incompetent executive office.

I will submit to you, however, that there has never been a better time to be a Republican. Thanks to decades of allowing our public education to go to seed the populace lacks the intelligence to understand relevant issues, and therefore are willing to vote against their interest. Racism is rampant and has not been this blatant since the 1950s – it’s not a stretch to envision a return to the days of Jim Crow.

This is a perfect storm. We have a population that is too stupid and racist to understand that what is holding them back is the divide between rich and poor, and we have a ruling party willing to exploit their ignorance. This is the outcome of years of capitalism run amok.

John McCain voted against Donald Trump’s draconian health care bill and once again people are hailing him as a maverick. I’m happy with his vote but less effusive than most. He’s got nothing to lose by voting his conscience. I’m wondering if he was persuaded to come to Washington by moderate Senators who couldn’t afford to spend the political capital.

At any rate it’s remarkable that so many Senators – 49 – would vote for a bill that would essentially deny many Americans health care, defacto condemning a portion of them to death. These people should rot in hell.

When I was a kid and encountered an alpha-dog, as an introvert I suffered largely in silence. I took comfort in the rationalization was that after high school these dullards would end up in dead-end jobs and would almost certainly become alcoholics, wife-beaters, or felons.

And there you have the most irritating part of the Trump phenomenon. This brainless oaf who never got his come-comeuppance, and was in fact rewarded for his loutish ways. Personally I yearn to see Trump having to resign in disgrace, even though I realize this means that Mike Pence, someone whose politics are just as bad, if not worse than Trump’s, will ascend to the presidency.

The 2016 election actually confirmed one of the tenets of the American dream – anyone can become president. Allow me to rephrase that: Anyone with money can become president.

As we now know, there are no necessary qualifications for the job of United States president. You don’t have to have been a politician, a lawyer, a military officer. There is no need to possess a thorough knowledge of history, science, civics, or economics. I could be president, even though my greatest life-skill is knowing what to play over a C7+9+5 chord.

Yesterday the Washington Post broke the story that Donald Trump may have inadvertently leaked classified information to the Russians. This prompted immediate calls from my left wing brethren for impeachment.

Many people are still upset at the heartland folks who comprise Trump’s base, but I believe that they are now irrelevant. The MAGA (Make America Great Again) folks are no longer the problem. Sure, they did their part to get Fucko elected, but they no longer have any power. Indeed with the absence of affordable health care and job opportunities, they are screwed under the Trump administration’s legislation.

It’s now up to the Republican Congressmen to impeach Trump. They are the only ones that can fix this mess. Not the press, not protesters, and not the Democratic minority. I don’t hold out much hope.

What else is there to say? Damning testimony from Sally Yates reveals that Donald Trump was advised by Barack Obama not to hire Michael Flynn for NSA? That’s OK, just change the conversation by firing James Comey. The administration is saying that Comey was fired over his handling of Hillary Clinton’s emails but that’s such a bald face lie I’m surprised that NPR reporters can keep a straight face while delivering the news.

The thing that confounds me is how difficult it is to discern whether the Trump people are really this incompetent, or if this all misdirection. And does it even matter? It appears that whatever was done to pave the way for these oligarchs was done long ago behind closed doors. Was it Putin, the Heritage Foundation, or a third party that we haven’t even heard of? It hardly matters. We’re in it now.

This would be good horror movie title if we weren’t already living it.

THE NORMALIZATION!

One of the most confounding things about the Trump presidency is that a man who is uneducated and unqualified for his job is being taken seriously.

For instance, NPR news anchors thoroughly analyze Trump’s tweets, as if they are substantive, instead of the the knee-jerk rantings of an unstable personality.

Here’s Trump on Sirius radio in full-on historian mode:

I mean had Andrew Jackson been a little later you wouldn’t have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person but he had a big heart. He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War, he said “There’s no reason for this.” People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why? People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?

It’s unclear as to whether or not Trump knew that Jackson had died before the start of the war, but my money is on no.

The next day he took to Twitter to clarify:

President Andrew Jackson, who died 16 years before the Civil War started, saw it coming and was angry. Would never have let it happen!

From his mouth to God’s ears.

Now let’s go to the pundits for some crack analysis. NPR.com wrote,

This much is true: Andrew Jackson, who was president from 1829-1837, helped to avert a plausible civil war, generations before the actual one. In the 1830’s, South Carolina insisted on its right to nullify, or ignore, federal law. The South Carolinians objected to taxes — federal tariffs on the imported goods they were buying from Europe.

Jackson insisted that federal law reigned supreme. Through a carefully calibrated mixture of threats (a warship actually appeared in the harbor at Charleston, ready to open fire if need be) and compromises…

Yadda, yadda, yadda…

Yes, this is good knowledge, and I enjoy reading history as much as the next guy, but let’s be real here – Trump was not trying to delve into a deep historical discussion. He’s like a guy at a bar dogmatically asserting facts that have no basis in reality.

I wish I were a pundit. If somebody asked me what I thought Trump meant by ‘the Civil War being avoided if Andrew Jackson had been president,’ pundit Keitho would have responded, Trump is a moron.

The media, as well as social media, is all atwitter (if you’ll pardon the expression) over the first 100 days of the Trump presidency. All of a sudden this artificial benchmark of success has taken the nation by storm, dominating the news cycle. I counted no less than four first100 days of presidency articles in today’s Times.

Can I say something? WHO CARES! Look, we know this presidency is an abomination – a tumor on an already reeling American body – but we don’t need a random number of days to tell us this. We could have made this assessment on the 20th day, or even the 7th, if we weren’t so in love with a number that divides by 10.

And while I’m at it, how magical is the number 100? There is seemingly nothing that it can’t do. It can determine when a pitcher runs out of gas, as well as if a presidency is a success or failure. I wonder if it can also core a apple?

What a terrible week last week was for the NY Times. First they had a article about how being a part of the Trump administration is helping Ivanka’s brand. You might say, that’s hard hitting news, uncovering a fresh scandal. You would be wrong. It’s simply the Times being the Times, fawning and deferring to the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Now check out last Thursday’s juicy headline:

“Obama’s silence to end, but he won’t criticize Trump.”

What’s he going to talk about, rainbows & unicorns? Who the hell cares what he has to say when his replacement is one tweet away from starting WWIII?!

And finally, on Friday,, the Gray Lady went deep with a 4,000 word article about why James Comey investigated Hillary’s emails, while not releasing to the public the information that he was simultaneously investigating the Russian hacking. Not only was the article dull as dishwater, but it wasn’t news. That’s 10 minutes of work on my fantasy baseball team that I’ll never get back.